Mmm, crab cakes! Catching and eating your own seafood only enhances a trip to the San Juans.

Mmm, crab cakes! Catching and eating your own seafood only enhances a trip to the San Juans.

Photo: JOSHUA TRUJILLO/P-I

An unforgettable voyage filled with beauty -- and a little fear

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"An unseasonably strong low-pressure system will move across the area," crackled the strangely calm, female, robotic voice on the NOAA weather radio band. "A gale warning is in effect."

What the marine radio was telling us -- in our dimly lit cabin late that July night at Sucia Island -- was something we already knew: The winds were strong.

We were swinging wildly around our mooring buoy, like a weather vane. Other boats were dragging their anchors across the bottom of Fossil Bay. Nearby weather stations were reporting 37-knot gusts. The winds whistled through the mast and lines of our sailboat. Many boaters did not sleep too well that night.

A first-time trip to the San Juan Islands for a sailor is an enchanting experience. Peaceful mornings in remote coves, abundant wildlife, self-caught seafood and brilliant sunsets make the islands a magical place. But there is also plenty to intimidate and frighten even the most confident novice captain.

"Mother nature has a way of giving you random and arbitrary lessons," said Frances Ricks of Victoria, B.C., who has been a pleasure boater for 30 years. "So get used to a rough ride."

But nature is not the only challenge to a pleasurable experience. Machines offer their own challenges. Ricks and her husband, Jim, had to make an unscheduled stop in Cornet Bay near Deception Pass during their journey because of an engine problem with their 26-foot Tolleycraft power boat. It was misfiring, an easy fix at Cornet, but unnerving when the problem arose at a far more remote island.

"Sailing is training in mindfulness," Jim Ricks said after spending the afternoon with a mechanic. "You have to pay attention to detail. Anything can happen."

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My wife, Lina, and I traveled to the San Juans for two weeks in July. Our home was a 1988 Catalina 27-foot sailboat purchased on Craigslist 1 1/2 yeas ago. Along for the journey was my brother, freshly out of the military and in need of a vacation, and our energetic 15-month-old daughter.

Our trip began at Shilshole Bay Marina in Seattle. I opted for what some sailors call the "chicken route" to the San Juans -- along the eastern side of Whidbey Island, up to Saratoga Passage and through dramatic Deception Pass. It's a much calmer though longer trip than taking the west side of Whidbey.

Boaters who travel the eastside route have to plan to pass through Deception Pass at slack tide because the narrow passage funnels a significant amount of Puget Sound tidal exchange, which creates riverlike currents. The sailing winds also are not as good as traveling through Admiralty Inlet and across the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

But a trip along the west side of Whidbey Island in a rather small boat can be frightening, with large waves and unbuffered wind coming in from the Pacific. And often the weather radio warns of a "small craft advisory" in the strait. I want my wife and young daughter to continue coming on journeys, so I opted for the potentially less scary route.

Our first stop in the San Juans was Spencer Spit State Park on Lopez Island, offering 12 mooring buoys and decent anchorage. A sandy beach with enclosed fire pits is a wonderful marshmallow-roasting spot.

The spit, which nearly touches Frost Island at low tide, proved to be an excellent place for our daughter to learn to walk on land again. The 12-hour journey from Seattle to Deception Pass, a stop at Hope Island, an overnight in Cornet Bay and the three hours to Spencer Spit made her a bit wobbly on her feet.

Then we departed Spencer Spit for the most hyped boating destination in the San Juans: remote Sucia Island.

The ocean-carved sandstone cliffs provide the perfect setting for dramatic red, orange, brown and green madrona trees that cling precariously to the crumbly soil. The island, one of the most northern of the San Juans, is loved by boaters for its coves and easy anchorages. The entire island is a marine state park.

Diana Davidson of Bellingham has been visiting Sucia since she was 4 years old. Now she brings her own children to experience the stunning beauty of the island.

"Sucia is great because of the trails and coves," she said as she took a photo of her daughter, Celestina, standing atop a rock that a few minutes earlier was connected to land but now was an island amid the incoming tide. "It's great for kids because there is so much to explore. Many other islands don't offer all this."

Davidson also remembers when Sucia had abundant rockfish and crab. She said there is a voluntary agreement among many boaters not to harvest them now because the island has been overfished by the crowds that come aboard their fiberglass retreats.

The 564-acre island is popular, and the anchorages are sometimes crowded. Ironically, boaters come to Sucia for its remoteness.

When we arrived, we joined 85 other boats in Echo Bay and another 29 in Shallow Bay. Elsewhere, Ewing Cove, Fox Cove, Fossil Bay and Snoring Bay totaled about a dozen more boats moored or anchored. The group campsites on the beach between Echo and Shallow bays were filled with tents and campfires.

All the use has resulted in anchor damage to eelgrass beds and a decline in the fish population. The Washington State Parks and Recreation Commission has proposed installing 14 "No Anchor Zone" buoys to protect the eelgrass and the habitat it provides in Echo Bay. Also in the plan are 30 more mooring buoys to add to the existing 48. The hope is that fewer anchors plowing through the eelgrass will help the habitat rebound.

A proposal letter tacked near the pay station from the Parks and Recreation Commission said park managers have counted up to 150 boats in Echo Bay on a busy day.

Even with the crowds that visit on warm summer days -- they'll trail off dramatically after Labor Day -- there is still plenty to explore on Sucia. During a three-hour hike along one of the island's many trails, we encountered only two hikers (and plenty of mosquitoes). Most visitors lounged on the decks of their boats and soaked up the sun and tranquil landscape while eagles circled overhead and great blue herons made their signature squawks.

Our next destination, after stopping for ice and fuel at Roche Harbor on San Juan Island, was pleasant Stuart Island.

Stuart is mostly private, densely wooded and home to Reid Harbor State Park and about 30 full-time residents. The only access is by boat or seaplane.

My wife and I hiked with our still-wobbly daughter along the only public road on the island to visit the small historic schoolhouse and Teacherage Museum.

When we arrived at the school, we discovered that the shrinking number of families with children in the San Juans had forced the school to close its doors. The main schoolhouse was locked, and a note from the San Juan Island School District said the only students left to be taught at the school were the teacher's own two kids. The letter stated that was "inappropriate," so the school would close.

Loie Benson and her daughter, Ami, 16, drove by in their Citroen Mehari, a French car from the 1970s made of plastic. They said the school had closed twice before. Ami, who now goes to high school in Des Moines, said that in seventh grade her only classmate at the school was her sister.

But even without an abundance of classmates Ami loves the island she calls home. "Growing up, I didn't appreciate it very much, but now when I come back, it is breathtaking. When I bring friends here, they say, 'Oh my gosh, you grew up here.' They are amazed."

"I'm immersed in Stuart Island," said the bearded artist, who lives in a sailboat tied to his floating gallery in Reid Harbor.

Fromm's floating artist's lair was inspired by a historic photo he found in Seattle of a similar floating gallery from 1878. "I saw that photo ... and said, 'Wouldn't that be something.' "

Fromm designed and built the floating gallery, and during the summer months he anchors it and sells photographs and artwork to visiting boaters. His colorful photographs offer an insight into what fascinates Fromm: boats, water scenes, wildlife and Stuart Island.

Midway through our trip, the weather changed and the fog rolled in. We anchored in Roche Harbor and did not leave our boat for two days because of thick fog. My wife worked on her trip total of nine novels read, while I played with our daughter and paced in our shrinking cabin. I learned the true meaning of cabin fever.

When the fog lifted, we returned to Sucia. The winds howled. Our starter motor stopped working. Our mainsail was torn in half. Sail tape helped us return to Seattle. We learned some lessons.

Often sailors will say that sailing is about the journey, not the destination. The San Juans are different. While we traveled all the way from Seattle, we found the destination amazing. The journey was full of challenges -- from the weather, the sea and broken boat parts.